My first Lion kill

Seeing the “King Of The Jungle” is such a thrilling feeling. On my first trip to Kruger I was lucky enough to see five different sightings of this magnificent beast.

After a very uneventful morning drive, my friend and I drove back to our camp at Skukuza along the H4-1. Not too long after leaving Lower Sabie, we saw a lot of cars parked along the river. We had finally seen what we were hoping for. Our first Lion kill!

On the opposite side of the river bed we saw what all the commotion was about. There was a small pride of lions feeding on a zebra carcass. Unfortunately we did not witness the takedown, but we were treated to the feeding and interaction between the lions.

In total we counted 3 lionesses and 7 cubs. It was very entertaining to watch these lions. Some of the cubs were still very young and after feeding for a while they simply wanted to play. We parked at the sighting for close to 2 hours and simply enjoyed the various antics of the lions.

The kill still seemed quite fresh and there was still a lot of food available. We scanned the area hoping to see other scavengers that will try their luck at a quick meal. We could not see any action on the ground, but we did notice a good couple of vultures start to fly in.

Time was ticking and we started moving towards camp. Just as we thought the fun was all over my friend spotted a leopard further down the road, but I missed it. And as we thought the fun was over we arrived at another lion kill. Two lionesses had taken down a warthog. The lions were then chased away by some elephants nearby and ran off into the bush. About 40 minutes later one lioness emerged again and started feeding on the warthog. This was all behind thick bush so I could not take a decent photo.